U of O: Festival of Bands

I'm not normally a philosophical person, but I've decided to give it a try. I'm tired of competing in marching band, I just like being in marching band and having the audience love us. Screw the scores, I want to have fun. So, that being said, I won't be griping about the scoring at U of O this year, I'll just be talking about the good stuff. . .

So, without further adeu, FOB!

Call was at 8 am and we rehearsed until about 10:00. We got a lot done, definitely cleaned some stuff in the closer that we needed to, and then we went to change into uniform.

We loaded the busses by seniority (w00t, seniority!) and I sat next to Greg, behind Jake and Hannah, and near some other people. It was during this bus ride that I discovered the absolute crazy-cool song "White and Nerdy". White and Nerdy is my official theme song now, just a heads up. The music video, is a little extreme, but most of the lyrics apply to me (because anybody that actually wants to watch the Star Wars Holiday Special is just weird). Anyway, we listened to Weird Al all the way up and had a good time.

Once we got to U of O we unloaded and changed, went to warm up, and got ready for our prelims performance. Here's me leading our sectional, giving my "inspirational" "pep" "talk" before we hit the field.

After that we marched prelims and it went very well. It was one of our better run-throughs. The drum break that I talk about in a previous post was a huge crowd pleaser, they went absolutely wild! We had our picture taken, and for the goofy one I stole all the plumes from my section and pretended to eat them, that was exciting. Then we changed and went to watch some bands. After that we ate dinner and got ready for our Finals performance. The finals performance went even better than the prelims performance, and I was very satisfied, a good final performance at U of O, because I won't get to play there again :( We changed back into street clothes and headed back to the stadium to watch more bands. On the way I bought a new OMB CD (2002). We saw a bunch of good bands, but my favorite was Grants Pass because they had UMBRELLAS! They all pulled out a blue umbrella from a holster on their uniforms and had an AMAZING visual!

After finals, the green garter band played and we all danced/moshed/pretended to know how to dance. Then we all went down a bunch of levels to the front couple of rows and pretty much just went out of control, jumping, crowd surfing, screaming, dancing, yelling. . . it was a blast!

That's me in the beanie. Notice that in the first picture I seem to be plotting something, and that in the second picture I've jumped on to the person in front of me and we're falling forward onto the kid in the black jacket. That kid in the front row of the second picture is in my section. He is screaming. He actually comments on this blog, so if you ever see a comment by "Patrick", just remember the screaming kid, ok?

Yeah, basically, that was a blast. We sang the fight song, danced the robot, and generally had fun.

The bus ride back was subdued because certain chaperones refused to believe that they had signed up on the party bus (even though it was CLEARLY labeled), so we pretty much just talked and discussed strange religions. We only had one "rave" before we got yelled at.

We got back to school at midnight and I made it home by 1 o'clock, at which point I slept. . . . . . .

That was U of O, an exciting day, with some judging issues that you can look up on OregonLive.com if you care, but I'd rather focus on the fact that it was fun and we pleased the audience, because that's what marching band is truly about.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Blog!

My blog is 1 year old today! For the last year he (I've decided it's a he) has experienced many exciting adventures and many scary problems, but he has pulled through like the best of them. He's heard about football games, defective forks, rain, fire, Truman, MIT, and countless other things, all in an attempt to help me better explain myself. And so, I raise my glass to you, Mr. Blog, and I toast you on this your 1st birthday, and I have this to say.

DID YOU KNOW THAT THIS IS YOUR 100th POST TOO?!?!?!?!?

OMG BLOG! You're growing up right before my very eyes. I want to thank everybody that has taken the time to comment on my posts, read my posts, or lie to me and say that you've read my posts. You are the folks that make this blog still thrive and the folks that have pushed it to 1 year and 100 entries. My blog is now going to relax and enjoy the rest of his birthday with a little music and some cake. Regular posting to begin again soon. So long, good night, and good luck!

Awesome Percussion Feature

So, our marching show this year (which will be kicking butt, btw) has a totally rockin' sweet percussion feature half way through. Here's how it works. Please look at the picture. The following actions are all occurring at the same time:

A) These are two brass lines. They shift into "S" shapes, and then shift back.

B) These are two woodwind diagonals. The red dot people stay at a halt while the woodwinds on either side of them dosi-do around them, 8 counts for a full rotation. This is done twice.

C) The center four dots are our two snares and two tenor players. They stand back to back in a circle at a halt. The dots around them are our cymbal players, who face in towards the snares and tenors and rotate counter-clockwise. While rotating they hold their cymbals up vertically in front of their faces for the snares and tenors to play. Thus, the drummers play on a rotating circle of cymbals during their groove.

Now, keep in mind, all of this happens at the same time, making it nearly impossible to catch all of it. It's very neat, one of the coolest things our band has ever done. Now, for the kicker.

After all of that, the cymbals, in order to get to their next set, stick their arms out like wings and "fly" to the next page of drill. They bank a couple of times and actually pretend to fly. Wow, yay for awesome drum breaks!!!!!!!

DS attacks PS3

Sorry I haven't had any posts in a while, but I can't help but feel that that's probably a good thing. I was posting so many times that I was practically spamming my own blog with stuff of very little entertainment value. So, now, after a brief hiatus, I return with a very entertaining snippit from the Tokyo Game Show.

The Tokyo Game Show is a conference in Tokyo where video game companies (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and others) go to show off their new lineups and impress people. Well, Sony had a rough time this year.

Sony is releasing the PS3 in mid-November but although some people are really excited, others are horrified at the $600 price and terrible launch game lineup. It appears doomsday is coming for Sony, because if the PS3 tanks then the company, according to analysts, goes under. Yes, Sony will topple. But, this doesn't stop some people from having fun while watching this failure happen.

The president of Sony, Ken Kutaragi, gave his keynote address at the Tokyo Game Show, and although I haven't actually read it or seen it, every single thing I've read says it was the most horrendous, terrible, sucky, *negative adjective* thing ever! The translators couldn't translate all of the technical jargon and the speech wasn't good to begin with. Soooooo, what do the grown men and women reporters in the audience do? They whip out their Nintendo DS's (Nintendo's new gameboy with two screens, one a touch screen) and start picto-chatting with each other.

Picto-chat is a free chat program on the DS that allows people to draw pictures and send stuff to each other. Well, as you will see, the picto-chatting my just foreshadow massive PS3 failure.

Sony Computer Entertainment presents - "You know your division's in trouble when... "- During a keynote address in your home territory, a large portion of the audience is talking amongst themselves using the competition's handheld device.

Some believed that Ken had an ace up his sleeve. . .



Others thought it was beer.



Here's a PS3 cost gripe, yes, definitely 2 "whatever-comes-after-trillion" yen.



A nice play on those little peeing car window stickers, only this time with the Wii dominating. Wii!!!!!!!!!



Poor guy snuck in for the hour long nightmare, only to be laughed at and scorned by the actual reporters. HA!



Yes, it's true, the PS3 is actually just a George Foreman grill, duh!



The Microsoft dragon eating the PS3. . . .mmmmmm.


So, I hope you found those entertaining, I sure did!

Wii 4ever!

Wii Press Conference Last Night at 1 am. I was up for it, watching the live blogging, and here are some of the exciting details really quick before I go to school.

Japan:
$215
December 2nd launch date



Here's the box art!

It's launching with 16 games, the controller and the nunchuck are sold separately. The US press conference is today, more updates later.

Spreadsheet Art

I bought the most recent issue of "Wired" magazine and read a short little blurb about a lady who makes art with spreadsheets. By making all the cells squares and changing the background colors, fabulous mosaics can take shape. I was surprisingly fascinated by this, maybe just because it makes so much sense, so I started fiddling. I'm not to the point of creation, only replication, but I'm still really impressed with the results. My creations have all been Mario, because it's 8-bit and blocky, therefore easy to create. Wanna see? Here are the pictures of my works of art.

KITTY! [UPDATE]